DO THINGS HAPPEN "FOR A REASON'?!

The other day I was meditating during a sacred cacao ceremony and started scribbling down some guidance from a future self - I know for some of you this sounds like psychosis, so feel free to disregard the source of the information and focus on the information itself. I’d prefer not to have to hide my authentic self, so I’ll just write about this like it’s completely normal. Because to me, it is.  

I was asking for guidance about my progress professionally, like what to teach, what direction to focus on. Which led me to one of the core principles I live by:

Everything in my life happens for the highest good and to serve my best interest. 

But it hit me that every single time I brought this up in some shape or form, people got incredibly triggered. I received countless messages from people along the lines of: “My sister was murdered by her husband, do you think that was for the highest good?” or “My toddler passed away from cancer, do you think that happened for a reason?” 

And it’s always hard for me to explain, because “Everything Happens For a Reason” has been the mantra of New Age spiritual bypassing. Which is entirely fair to judge, because what the fuck.

Spiritual bypassing is framing enlightenment as being above struggle, pain, anger, or grief. These people and gurus are talking about “ego death” and insist that they are high vibrational so they are capable of acceptance, surrender, and forgiveness. That all there is is love and it all happens for a reason. It is possible to transcend suffering if you just spiritually out-evolve it. 

I’m not even saying they are wrong, because this is pretty much what enlightenment is and it is a valid and important direction to take when one steps on a spiritual path. Only that we are not little fluffy ghosts in the clouds who can just float all day, we are human beings in bodies living in communities and families with other human beings in bodies. We have dysregulated nervous systems, we carry trauma, illness, we have to navigate complicated relationships, aging, loss. We experience scarcity, lack of acceptance, limitations, and struggle, we have messy emotions and shadow sides that rage or bleed in pain. That is the human experience, there is no opting out. 

So no, it’s not that everything happens for some perfectly orchestrated magical loving reason, sometimes the reason seems to be a giant pointless cosmic middle finger. 

I don’t know why babies die from cancer. I spent years trying to find answers to the question “why” and trust me, I explored everything from evil reptilian extraterrestrial races interbreeding with us, through secret societies running the world, to consciousness splitting itself into duality. At the end nothing gave me answers that made sense and I stopped looking. Seeking “why” is just a way to try to control what I can’t ever control.  

What can I control though? My mindset and perception. So how do I believe that everything happens for my highest good, then? 

Well, it isn’t a cop-out or bypassing, but it is a choice. 

You either believe that life is full of pointless suffering we are all at the mercy of, that these hardships and tragedies set you back, so you have to spend tremendous effort to get back to “normal”, all while fearing it may happen again in different forms.

Or you believe that everything (the good, the bad, thrilling, or uncomfortable) that happens to you has the potential to make you catapult forward, to grow, step into what was meant for you, change paths for the better, develop in many ways, create, become more of yourself, compress into love and change-making. That you have the power to transmute your experiences, even if you don’t have the power to control or avoid them.

If you gain the power over what you make out of experiences instead of allowing yourself to simmer in victimhood and the unfairness of it, you get into the practice of creating your experiences by scripting your consciousness. If anything fed into your life is spitting out more love, wisdom, compassion, activism, art, and growth instead of bitterness, cynicism, hopelessness, hate, or anger - guess what we will fill our lives and the entire world with! This is generational, societal curse-breaking.

I make a conscious choice to believe everything in my life happens for me. Every heartbreak saves me from a prolonged bad relationship or being with the wrong person. Every horrific trauma I survived has given me lifetimes’ worth of wisdom I can utilize not just for my own growth, but to support others, to teach, and write. Every time my business struggles with revenue it shows me that I stopped following my heart and calling and that I need to pivot. Every time I get a nasty flu I have the downtime to process emotions and think about deeper things I don’t get a chance to when I’m running around and working every day. When I have to leave and I break a glass I have to clean up and I just want to scream, I think about the speeding car I may have avoided colliding with by leaving 5 minutes after I should have. When they discontinue my absolute favorite skincare product, I always find an even better one I would’ve never seeked because I had a routine. 

It doesn’t mean I erase every uncomfortable experience with cheerful optimism, it is so important to allow the shadow parts to exist, to allow the painful emotions to pass through, even if it takes them a long time or if they’re frequent visitors like grief after loss. It’s more about what I do with them afterwards. It makes me so hopeful that even the darkest things can be transmuted just by changing your beliefs about them. Is it delusional? Certainly. Does it work? Absolutely.

I choose to live my life believing that the entire universe is conspiring for my benefit because it makes me happier, more secure, more fulfilled, more loving, more healed, more prosperous, and I have so much more to give. To others and towards changing the world for the better. In my life everything happens for a reason and the reason is for my life to get better.

It doesn’t give me permission to discount other people’s experiences, though. I think it’s a solitary path to find meaning and value after hardship and it’s very counterproductive to tell someone “I’m sure it happened for a reason, just make the best of it”.

Maybe we should instead say “I’m so deeply sorry it happened, I know how some things just seem utterly unfair and fucking pointless. I hope you get to find a path forward that brings a positive transformation so it isn't all in vain, even if it takes some time.”

What do you think?